Connie Dover - Border of Heaven

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Music reviews of Border of Heaven

Music Review: Singing the Cowboy Etherial
Rating: 5 Stars

It differs from Connie Dover's previous CDs only in emphasis, containing mostly songs of the American West related by tune or words to Celtic or English tunes or songs, with a few just generally New World.

Flaws? Perhaps too many of the slower songs are grouped in the second half of the album. Perhaps some of the renderings are too placid (particularly "What Wondrous Love"). But otherwise ....

I laughed from pure joy and delight on hearing "An Spailpín Fanach (The Wandering Laborer)", as the beautiful Gaelic syllables pour out to the lively, unequalled tune better known as "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

"Going to the West", mostly Connie Dover's own composition, and one of the most tuneful and moving songs on the album, had for me a meaning I don't think she intended at all to from her notes. The West, where Sun and Day vanish, is in some mythological traditions the Land of the Dead. But this interpretation works wonderfully, especially in light of the album's name (which in her notes she derives from a description of the land of Beulah in John Bunyan's _Pilgrim's_Progess_).

It is the well-known songs that mostly grab me here: "Sweet Betsy from Pike" (in a full, gritty, matter-of-fact version detailing pioneer rough joy, hardship and despair), "The Water is Wide", "Lord Franklin", "Winter's Night" (which is mostly the widespread , floating "Who will shoe your pretty little foot" verses) and "The Streets of Laredo" where Connie Dover sings an Old British version of the ballad followed by guest Western singer Skip Gorman with the cowboy version. Some of these I thought I'd been satiated with from numerous other renderings; but they compel again, which is, I suppose, why they remain such well-known songs.

But I'm grateful for the other, previously unknown, gems. The scholarly notes are judicious, dust-free, with enough hints and references for those who wish to seek further.

Description of Border of Heaven

Folk CDs

• Music > Styles
• World Music
• Pop